ATI 2021 doesn't create WinPE -> RE recovery medium for RAID recovery
Hi - didn't find an ATI 2021 forum, so posting here.
I've been trying to access an AMD (X570) RAID volume. For that, I need a WinPE or RE-based boot media, which takes the AMD RAID drivers to detect the volume.
However, I found that neither creating the standard rescue boot media in PE -> RE mode works - after starting and doing stuff for a while it always ends up showing a message "unable to create".
Also tried creating a universal restore medium, but that media creation tool "exits" (or crashes?) when trying to add custom drivers to the image, the respective popup dialog just appears and then disappears after 2 seconds, and the program terminated.
Furthermore tried to use the standard boot media that comes with ATI Home, but that one misses the RAID driver so logical that it will only "see" two separate drives when accessing the RAID volume.
ATI2021 latest build 39216 is installed.
Any help on this deadlock is appreciated.
Thank you!
Davy
David,
Are you attempting a restore operation or a backup operation here?
In the media that you do create does the raid volume appear in the application? If yes does it appear as a single disk?
Are you certain that you have added the correct drivers to the WinPE/RE for your raid volume?
Enchantech wrote:David,
Are you attempting a restore operation or a backup operation here?
In the media that you do create does the raid volume appear in the application? If yes does it appear as a single disk?
Are you certain that you have added the correct drivers to the WinPE/RE for your raid volume?
Hi Enchantech,
ultimately my goal is to have reliable means to access this volume in case of emergency - be it for cloning, restoring, or any kind of other interaction or mitigation activities as required.
As I tried to describe, I cannot create any of the media in first place with the custom drivers. Default boot media doesn't complete with an error, and the universal restore one terminates the attempt before I can even get to adding any custom drivers. And because I am unable to have a customized image, I also cannot access the volume right now.
Thanks
David
Steve Smith wrote:Davy, I would suggest trying the MVP Custom PE Builder tool and adding your AMD RAID drivers to that media via the prompt to install Custom drivers. By default, the tool will add the Intel RAID (RST) drivers but you can add in the AMD ones using the same approach.
See the link in my signature.
Hi Steve,
yes I've considered that as one of my next steps, however was not as efficient with it in the past. Even if I understand the framework, it seems like a lot of work (ADK, PE, what have you), was trying to avoid if Marketing tells me "oh look at that easy to use boot media creator, and restore on any dissimilar hardware, no issue" - I'm exaggerating but really this part could be improved much.
Also, wasn't that one based off ATI 2019? If I was to restore some data off an ATI 2021 backup, would that still work?
Thanks
David
David, the MVP Custom PE Builder script does not require you to install the Windows ADK & PE Kits - it can work just as well with the files from the WinRE partition plus it works fine with ATI 2021 plus, with a little help can also work with ACPHO.
How are you offering up the AMD RAID drivers to the Acronis Bootable Media Builder tool?
David,
When using the "Bootable Rescue Media Builder" in the True Image 2021 product which options have you attempted to use? There are 3 options.
- Simple
- Advanced
- Linux
The Simple option will use the WinRE (Windows recovery) image found in your Recovery partition in most cases to build a Windows based boot/recovery media which can be applied to a flash drive or a CD. This Simple version will in most cases contain the drivers for your storage controllers. If you are seeing errors here then it is possible you have an issue with your RE.
What errors do see here if using the Simple option?
If you use the Advanced option then this requires that you download the Windows Assessment and Development Kit (ADK) from MS and install it on your PC so that the Media Builder can use those files to create your boot media.
Only in rare occasions will the Simple option of media creation not work.
Enchantech wrote:David,
When using the "Bootable Rescue Media Builder" in the True Image 2021 product which options have you attempted to use? There are 3 options.
- Simple
- Advanced
- Linux
The Simple option will use the WinRE (Windows recovery) image found in your Recovery partition in most cases to build a Windows based boot/recovery media which can be applied to a flash drive or a CD. This Simple version will in most cases contain the drivers for your storage controllers. If you are seeing errors here then it is possible you have an issue with your RE.
What errors do see here if using the Simple option?
If you use the Advanced option then this requires that you download the Windows Assessment and Development Kit (ADK) from MS and install it on your PC so that the Media Builder can use those files to create your boot media.
Only in rare occasions will the Simple option of media creation not work.
Thanks Enchantech,
looks like I missed to explain one part in my initial walk-through. I'm going the advanced path for the simple reason of my system being capable of both AHCI (configured right now), and RAID options.
With the current AHCI configuration "registered" in Windows I cannot just use the simple method as I do need to inject the "future" RAID drivers into the image, so once I switch over to RAID in UEFI, it will detect the volume.
Now, as for the advanced option I'm using: it allows me to first select between WinPE- and Linux-based, ans when I choose WinPE, the next dialog offers architecture, I select x64, and then has 3 options: WinRE, Win8/8.1/10 requiring ADK, and Win7 requiring AIK.
When I select WinRE I immediately get the dialog to add drivers even though no ADK downloaded. I add drivers for all relevant RAID and mass storage, plus the LAN driver for flexibility. Next I previously selected the target USB drive and go - where it'd do "something" for a while but end with an error.
I have just started this again with ISO image as target - which succeeded! Will try and update whether I could access the volume now.
Thanks
David
Update: the ISO worked well, could boot, but both in UEFI AHCI and RAID modes could only detect 2 different drives, both as type "Linux swap, Solaris". Now trying MVP.
Steve Smith wrote:David, the MVP Custom PE Builder script does not require you to install the Windows ADK & PE Kits - it can work just as well with the files from the WinRE partition plus it works fine with ATI 2021 plus, with a little help can also work with ACPHO.
How are you offering up the AMD RAID drivers to the Acronis Bootable Media Builder tool?
I think my convo with Enchantech explains, will update later.
Thanks for encouraging the use of MVP, it's been like 2years since last try so might be worth looking at it again.
David, please see forum topic: [How to] Advanced WinPE/RE Driver Injection in Acronis Media Builder - this may help with this issue.
Steve Smith wrote:David, please see forum topic: [How to] Advanced WinPE/RE Driver Injection in Acronis Media Builder - this may help with this issue.
Thanks Steve, I agree, good guide in case you want to extract drivers of an existing configuration. However, it doesn't fit my use case as I'm running in AHCI mode which doesn't currently enumerate the right driver (I realize, someone asked if I'm sure I'm using the right RAID drivers- which I've confirmed by trying to install Windows fresh on the RAID volume, which works fine when I give Windows installer the exact same drivers). So anyway thanks for trying to be helpful, now trying MVP.
So, on to using MVP v18.6 using option 2) WinRE - didn't succeed but at least some:
1. constructive feedback - for file !!!!README!!!!_WinRE_Support!!!.txt
For the recommended option "A":
- add that the install.wim file can be found in folder "sources" on the Windows installation DVD/ISO once mounted
- add more specifically the command to mount the install.wim with dism (BTW, dism is integral to Windows 10 and 11, no need for the ADK)
dism /mount-wim /wimfile:c:\yourpath\install.wim /index:1 /MountDir:c:\yourpath\newdir /Readonly
- and the command for unmounting again
dism /unmount-wim /mountdir:c:\yourpath\newdir /discard
2. question, see error message in the attached, what could be the reason? No logs in the folder.
Thx David
Here's some answers to your problems.
1. When I've looked at AMD RAID drivers in the past I have seen two inf files in the same folder. That causes a problem with the Acronis Media Builder. When it adds a driver it only adds the first inf file it finds in a folder and stops. That means the driver hasn't been completely added. You can solve this issue by creating two folder with the AMD RAID driver. Just delete one of the inf files from each folder and tell the Acronis Media Builder to add both folders.
The MVP Tool doesn't make that mistake. It adds all inf files in a folder and all sub-folders.
2. The MVP Tool finds the correct winpe.wim file for your system by reading the output from the following command entered in an admin. command window:
reagentc /info
If WinRe is disabled on your system, the path to the winre.wim file will not be shown. You need to fix the issue and get WinRE enabled on your system to use the WinRE option in the MVP Tool. You can also install the ADK and WinPE add-on which will allow you to use the build from an installed ADK option.
The Acronis Media Builder will find the first winre.wim file that is present on your Windows disk whether WinRE in Enabled or Disabled. The problem is that it often finds the wrong winre.wim file when there are multiple Recovery partitions on the disk. The MVP Tool doesn't make that mistake.
Mustang wrote:Here's some answers to your problems.
1. When I've looked at AMD RAID drivers in the past I have seen two inf files in the same folder. That causes a problem with the Acronis Media Builder. When it adds a driver it only adds the first inf file it finds in a folder and stops. That means the driver hasn't been completely added. You can solve this issue by creating two folder with the AMD RAID driver. Just delete one of the inf files from each folder and tell the Acronis Media Builder to add both folders.
The MVP Tool doesn't make that mistake. It adds all inf files in a folder and all sub-folders.
2. The MVP Tool finds the correct winpe.wim file for your system by reading the output from the following command entered in an admin. command window:
reagentc /info
If WinRe is disabled on your system, the path to the winre.wim file will not be shown. You need to fix the issue and get WinRE enabled on your system to use the WinRE option in the MVP Tool. You can also install the ADK and WinPE add-on which will allow you to use the build from an installed ADK option.
The Acronis Media Builder will find the first winre.wim file that is present on your Windows disk whether WinRE in Enabled or Disabled. The problem is that it often finds the wrong winre.wim file when there are multiple Recovery partitions on the disk. The MVP Tool doesn't make that mistake.
Thanks Enchantech and Mustang for your inputs, and sorry for the late reply. After another couple of failed attempts I took the pill and reinstalled everything from scratch. Now, all boot media creators work fine with v2021, and custom drivers can be added, no issue.
The RAID volume is accessible from Windows, but still none of the boot media created can actually see it when booting them. I may try again the MVP part, but it's been time consuming. Right now I'm wondering whether to return to separate drives, it's getting risky with no boot/recovery solution (BTW other tools have similar issues, the EaseUs, Minitools and Aomeis. However I'm a bit disappointed from Acronis I must say.)
Now on the above hints:
1. there are 3 drivers indeed: rcbottom, rcraid, and rccfg. When added to the boot media creator, I see all 3 of them correctly added. Still can't see the volume on boot.
2. good stuff, not sure what the previous reagentc would've reported, as I reinstalled.
Now it shows me an "enabled" and a single location and indexes "0". I'll consider trying again later.
Thanks again guys
David
Update: MVP boot media also cannot see the RAID volume, but 2 separate drives.
During batch operation of MVP, noticed that Antivirus detects (I assume false-positive) an exploit in \temp\afolder\Scratch\FileInfo.bat thus got initially some "access denied" messages. Once whitelisted, the ISO was created fine.
Will get rid of the RAID, and hope things will be much more smooth again using standard volumes.
David,
I don't have any AMD processor systems to try and figure out the correct procedure to add the RAID driver. I know other people have had similar problems.
I think I can explain the why there are two raid drivers; if the motherboard has an X570 chipset, there are two SATA controllers. Not sure why they would require separate drivers. Could be needed to bridge the two controllers. Neither of my systems is configured for raid so I cannot confirm that. In non raid configuration both controllers use the same driver. Or one may be for M.2 drives and the other for SATA. One of my X570 PCs has 3 M.2 drives so an M.2 raid is possible.
Ian
Hello Ian, appreciate you chiming into the discussion. My experiences though have been much different, not sure what's the reason: do different mainboard manufacturers interpret the options differently? who knows. I'm on Asus Crosshair VIII and there are different variables here:
1. in the AMD driver package there are 3 different sets of drivers, NVMe_CC, NVMe_DID, RAID_SATA and each of these sets has as many as 3 drivers inside: rcbottom. rccfg, rcraid as I outlined above. What I learnt from AMDs RAID documentation is that depending on the generation of CPU one has, you need to pick the right drivers. As an example, I have a Ryzen 9 5x, so I needed to pick the NVME_CC driver in combination with my NVMe RAID setup. By the way, these drivers do work when I install Windows 10 or 11 fresh. If installed in any Acronis boot media, even if loaded (can't say for sure) from WinPE/RE boot media, they don't see the RAID volume spanning 2 NVMe disks, they do see 2 separate disks.
2. the 2nd axis is this one: per AMDs documentation at least for my board, you can't actually mix an NVMe RAID of 2 drives with any SATA drives. Picture that, me trying to setup or access a RAID volume with data on an AHCI SATA drive trying to bridge both worlds, to no success. So, creative me I pick a USB-SATA adapter, plug my AHCI SATA drive in, and I can have both. Theroretically, but not practically.
Long story short, I did give up, dissolved my RAID today and went back to AHCI mode of all drives. What a mess, don't follow that same path if you have a choice. The one thing that ATI did right is that it was the only tool that allowed me to clone my existing system partitions out of a running system onto the USB-SATA disk. This way, I had all my data even from the RAID volume ready on something I could unplug for then safely reinstall Windows on the dissolved RAID NVMe drives, and pull back what I needed afterwards. It remains a mystery to me why really none of the many attempts of boot media creation got me to access the RAID volume outside of media. For my use cases I conclude it's not worth it.
Cya
David
PS: oh, I almost forgot: in non-RAID mode, the NVMe drives use either the default MSstorport, or the Samsung secnvme driver. So none actually uses the specific RAID driver until you switch all drives (because you can't mix AHCI and RAID) to RAID only. But if you do that, you can't boot anymore from any AHCI drive. So a deadlock.
Thanks for the detailed explanation of what you found.
My three Ryzen systems have Gigabyte motherboards; two have x570 chipset (both with 5th generation Ryzen CPU), the other x370 with first generation Ryzen CPU (only one SATA controller). Never tried raid on any of them. Only use raid on my NAS and my work PC.
Ian